I posted this in the City University forums, but I'm pretty sure the moderators there will not approve it.

Let me start with a summary if you're planning to get a good job and do well in your future choose a better university.

I will be focusing on the course curriculum and the lecturers because arguably this is what is most important in a university.

City University London is very scared of failing students and they actively try to bring most people to at least a pass or above. How do they do that? By helping struggling students and spending more time on their module content? NO! They make their modules easier and easier every year because otherwise if students do badly, the university statistics will be hurt and fewer people will apply, which of course means less money… Hurray capitalism.

For the first year, we learnt the basics of most stuff and I was happy. I was learning new stuff, sometimes it was hard but it was generally pretty easy, no surprise there it was only the first year and our grades weren’t counted towards our degree. Then comes the second year…

Year 2, I was eager to study expecting much harder modules that will need so much work in order to do well. I was very wrong, year 2 was arguably easier than the first, we are still learning many different things from computer science, but we’re just covering the basics. THAT IS IT. Just some basic stuff about the things we need to be learning, when I google for something I don’t know and see the kind of questions students in different universities around the world ask, makes me feel like an idiot and not learning anything. In other places, they seem to be doing actual computer science with a lot of maths involved, not here though, here it is just simple theory you can learn for a couple of days before the exam and still get a first. Also if you did well in the first year, you will be punished in the second year, for the group project instead of letting you choose your own group they pair the people with highest grades with the people with the lowest grades. If you did badly then you are awarded by getting 1 or 2 smart people in your group who will do most of the work for you because of how bad you are… They told us they had a year where they let people form their own group but it had a high fail rate, but it also had the highest scores ever seen in the module. Nice, sabotaging our grades so that the majority can do mediocre. It is the final term of year 2 and there are still people who can’t even write a single line of code… We learnt some interesting maths for computer science in year 1 (mainly set theory, probability, graphs etc.) in year 2 maths is nowhere to be seen. I stopped attending lectures because honestly they’re not needed if you spend a few days studying before the exam you are guaranteed a first.

The worst module of them all is PDIT, it means professional development in IT, guess what, it has nothing to do with IT, they teach you how to write cover letters and how to speak in interviews… It is worth as much as the other modules and it is clearly meant as a module to boost your grade.

I’ve attached the mock exam for Data Structures and Algorithms (open books) which is usually a very hard part of computer science and the actual exam for Programming in C++, they’re both year 2 modules and they're nothing you cannot learn with a couple youtube videos, these exams are very, very basic. The programming one especially is just an exam for very basic syntax, we already had one like this, it was in year 1 but in Java… City University is a scam, they make their modules easy to skew statistics in their favour.

The last thing I want to add is about the lecturers, they have absolutely 0 motivation except for the ones from year 1 and I think that was because they were lecture assistants and not actual lecturers. They were great, universities should stop hiring researchers to do their teaching because while they might be very knowledgeable they suck at teaching. I'm pretty sure this point can be made for any course in any university.

Sorry if this seems pissy, but when they asked for our feedback, they send us an email 40 minutes before a “feedback event” where you go and fill your feedback “anonymously”. Most people are too far away to be able to come in 40 minutes time…

(Original post by AnonMagic)
I posted this in the City University forums, but I'm pretty sure the moderators there will not approve it.

Let me start with a summary if you're planning to get a good job and do well in your future choose a better university.

I will be focusing on the course curriculum and the lecturers because arguably this is what is most important in a university.

City University London is very scared of failing students and they actively try to bring most people to at least a pass or above. How do they do that? By helping struggling students and spending more time on their module content? NO! They make their modules easier and easier every year because otherwise if students do badly, the university statistics will be hurt and fewer people will apply, which of course means less money… Hurray capitalism.

For the first year, we learnt the basics of most stuff and I was happy. I was learning new stuff, sometimes it was hard but it was generally pretty easy, no surprise there it was only the first year and our grades weren’t counted towards our degree. Then comes the second year…

Year 2, I was eager to study expecting much harder modules that will need so much work in order to do well. I was very wrong, year 2 was arguably easier than the first, we are still learning many different things from computer science, but we’re just covering the basics. THAT IS IT. Just some basic stuff about the things we need to be learning, when I google for something I don’t know and see the kind of questions students in different universities around the world ask, makes me feel like an idiot and not learning anything. In other places, they seem to be doing actual computer science with a lot of maths involved, not here though, here it is just simple theory you can learn for a couple of days before the exam and still get a first. Also if you did well in the first year, you will be punished in the second year, for the group project instead of letting you choose your own group they pair the people with highest grades with the people with the lowest grades. If you did badly then you are awarded by getting 1 or 2 smart people in your group who will do most of the work for you because of how bad you are… They told us they had a year where they let people form their own group but it had a high fail rate, but it also had the highest scores ever seen in the module. Nice, sabotaging our grades so that the majority can do mediocre. It is the final term of year 2 and there are still people who can’t even write a single line of code… We learnt some interesting maths for computer science in year 1 (mainly set theory, probability, graphs etc.) in year 2 maths is nowhere to be seen. I stopped attending lectures because honestly they’re not needed if you spend a few days studying before the exam you are guaranteed a first.

The worst module of them all is PDIT, it means professional development in IT, guess what, it has nothing to do with IT, they teach you how to write cover letters and how to speak in interviews… It is worth as much as the other modules and it is clearly meant as a module to boost your grade.

I’ve attached the mock exam for Data Structures and Algorithms (open books) which is usually a very hard part of computer science and the actual exam for Programming in C++, they’re both year 2 modules and they're nothing you cannot learn with a couple youtube videos, these exams are very, very basic. The programming one especially is just an exam for very basic syntax, we already had one like this, it was in year 1 but in Java… City University is a scam, they make their modules easy to skew statistics in their favour.

The last thing I want to add is about the lecturers, they have absolutely 0 motivation except for the ones from year 1 and I think that was because they were lecture assistants and not actual lecturers. They were great, universities should stop hiring researchers to do their teaching because while they might be very knowledgeable they suck at teaching. I'm pretty sure this point can be made for any course in any university.

Sorry if this seems pissy, but when they asked for our feedback, they send us an email 40 minutes before a “feedback event” where you go and fill your feedback “anonymously”. Most people are too far away to be able to come in 40 minutes time…

This does seem very disappointing. The PDIT thing if it taught you a lot then might have been worth it but meh.

The group coursework grouping sounds like **** too.

I can only hope that using your good grade from the course + skills you gain from self studying gets you to where you want to go.

Thanks God I didn't apply to that uni. I was actually considering it. But yes I do agree on what you are saying. It's a trend in all univerities. Some more some less. Here at Brunel University London it's actually not that bad but I do have a similiar feeling. I hope in the following years it won't get as bad as you say.